The Damaged Left Eye
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [manga-verse] Mei wasn't quite sure why she still kept her damaged eye.


**A/N:** My first Another fic, and this one's following the manga-verse since Izumi doesn't stab Mei's eye in the anime. :) This entire little ficlet depends on that after all.

Written for The A-Maze-Ing Race Challenge on the AMF, fic 9 with prompt: increase. Also for the 5,10,20,50,70,100 fandoms challenge, fandom 51.

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**The Damaged Left Eye**

The plastic had bent inwards and become scratched where Izumi had driven the knife in. The strength of that stab hadn't been enough to break the doll's eye, but enough to take away its sight, and Mei replaced the eye-patch only because she had become so used to its presence, before following the trail of death she could no longer see.

Later, much later, she took the eye-patch off and stared at the damaged eye in the mirror. 'Beautiful', Kirika had said to her. Kouichi had said the same. Or rather, 'I think it's beautiful', is what he had said. She couldn't remember how he had sounded as he said it. She also didn't know why she was thinking of it.

Kirika seemed to know, because Mei found her reflection in the mirror too, but her guardian said nothing to her, save the stiff expression she often seemed to wear. Even in the dusty mirror it showed strongly, carved so carefully that Mei sometimes wondered Kirika was a doll as well, just like everything else in her workshop.

'Your eye is damaged.'

'Yes.'

Perhaps someone listening to their conversation would have noted the equal monotone in both voices, but there was nobody there to hear save them…and their dolls.

Kirika frowned a little, lips twisting slowly in the dim reflection. Then she held out a hand. 'I'll fix it for you.'

_For you…_

Mei found herself shaking her head, even before the words had reached her brain. 'No,' she reiterated when it did. 'No, I don't want a doll's eye again.'

Still, she lifted her fingers to the damaged eye, feeling the plastic's demented shape and the furls which the knife had pushed up. It hurt to closer her eyelids because of that, and the area surrounding it had reddened as a result…and would continue to redden until the eye either changed or was permanently removed. It looked much like when she had first begun to wear the eye, when the empty socket had whined to the stranger within it – and would probably whine again once it was gone for longer than a single, sleepless night.

And Mei wondered why she had continued to replace it, when it could not see nor be seen.

'Why?' Kirika asked her, and Mei could not reply. Not to why she didn't want the eye, nor why she couldn't let it go. And Kirika frowned again before leaving her to her whims, beginning on a new doll. A somewhat lopsided one, Mei noticed belatedly. Maybe there was some symbolism with that.

When the sound of plastic scraping was solid in her ears she moved again, carefully prying the doll's eye from its socket and staring at its empty hole in her reflection. It felt strange; it was day and not night after all, and she was planning on going to the hospital soon to visit Kouichi, and even with her eye patch now firmly covering that eye again it felt somehow lopsided to her.

Still, there was nothing to be done. Izumi had done for her what she could not: removed the sight from that cursed eye. And yet she still could not let go of that plastic vessel, despite the countless times she had put it away, only to replace it again.

She looked at the eye in her hands once more, feeling the rough surface that had once been flawlessly smooth, then felt around. Her brow furrowed in confusion when she could find neither cloth nor the scalpel but then she saw Kirika with them both, on her work bench, working on a half-formed skull.

She washed the eye instead, then replaced it feeling the soft scrapes on the underskin of her eyelid as she blinked the hollow shell into place. Perhaps one day she would get around to smoothing it, at least enough to make it comfortable to wear again – or maybe, she could remove it entirely that day. Or maybe, it would be easier to put it somewhere safe and out of reach, somewhere where she would know of its continued existence without the ease of taking it again.

A slight smile formed on her lips when she wondered how Kouichi would react to such a gift, then reconsidered. It meant a lot more to the both of them, after all, than just a once beautiful replacement for her left eye. Even if she could no longer see the colour of death from it, and hopefully never would again, it held too many memories for her to lose, or burden him with.

Maybe…maybe she had been wrong when she told him dolls had no souls. She wasn't sure, and she still wasn't when she left the studio behind and entered the larger doll-house called the world.


End file.
